Mother of a Man-Child

My life with teenage boys

Mother of a Man-Child: Pocket Money-A Different Approach? January 28, 2011

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coinsThe age-old questions about pocket-money have again raised their heads in our household.  How much should we pay our men-children?  What chores should they have to do on a daily/weekly basis to earn it?  How do we ensure they actually DO anything to help around the house?  Should we threaten no pocket-money at all to encourage them to get a job and partially fund themselves?

Our approach to date has been a weekly allowance, paid to them to spend as they see fit.  It’s not a lot I admit ($15 week) but in addition we’ve also pay $30 per month for their mobile phone usage (no ridiculous plans for us, pre-paid is fine for teenagers).  Not surprisingly the $15 is spent at Maccas, Grill’d, or various other food establishments – on reflection it wouldn’t go far would it?  You can spend $10 on lunch without even trying.  And then we pay for all “necessary” items, including clothes, haircuts, shoes etc.

I should add there are limits imposed here too – the other day Man-Child I wanted another haircut, since he likes it kept just at a certain length.  Having had one just 4 weeks earlier I said I was prepared to pay for haircuts on a regular basis, but that 4 weekly was a little too high maintenance for a teenage boy.

Our main issue is this – they currently do NOTHING to earn the $15.  Their bedrooms seem destined to remain like a tip site, the dishwasher remains full of clean dishes, the towels stay on the bathroom floor, the dirty dishes are left wherever they used them and the dirty clothes never make it to the laundry.  It’s even worse when they’re on holidays and have all day to attend to these trifling tasks and just don’t bother.  Yes I know it’s all perfectly normal teenage behaviour, but as Mother of a Man-Child and Father of a Man-Child both work full-time, a little help would be more than appreciated.

The other week Man-Child I was heading off for a holiday with a friend.  I asked him to ensure his room was left clean so I wouldn’t have to endure the sight of it for five days.  Sure, no problems.  I later discovered that this was achieved by moving every item that was in my sight line from the hallway to behind the door, thereby achieving my goal (clean room) and his (not to do it)!

Man-Child II is equally frustrating.  As you know in the midst of our renovations, Mother of a Man-Child is only just holding it together, being the neat freak that I am.  Now that the builders are working on a daily basis inside the house, instead of up in the roof, the dust, dirt and piles of building materials are slowly invading every spare inch of our home.   So I was literally BEGGING Man-Child II to clean up his room (I kid you not I was on the verge of tears and asking him to please just do it for my sanity) and he smugly replied “it’s simple really, if you don’t want to look at it, just close the door”.  I explained I also liked to see daylight in the house so he simply said he would clean his room “later”!  Of course that meant he would make a half-hearted attempt at 2am and that basically it wouldn’t be done.

BTW, we’re not just talking about wet towels and clean and dirty clothes on the floor, along with various other teenage flotsam and jetsam.  It also included the dirty frying pan and utensils that Man-Child II had used to make bacon and eggs, and then parked in the kitchen sink yet again for us to clean.  As is customary, Father of a Man-Child had parked the afore-mentioned frying pay in his bedroom, on his bed.  It had been on the floor for three days at this point.  Nice!

So our recent idea for pocket-money is to stop making the regular payments and move to an as-needs basis.  So when they ask for $20 to go to the movies, we can say “sure, no problems, but just before you get it you need to clean your room and empty the dishwasher”.  This way we get what we want, and they get what they want, and theoretically we should all end up satisfied.  What remains to be seen is whether or not we will end up much worse off financially via this approach?  But at least we will feel like we’re extracting some value for the money spent.  Oh and we’ll no doubt have to endure a man-child tantrum along with the request to do anything.

I’m sure they’ll find a way to manipulate the system to their advantage, but we figure it’s worth a try.  I know the other approach is to give them a large sum of money for the month/term and say there, everything comes out of that amount, but I don’t think our men-children are quite that disciplined as yet and I can see $300 disappearing in two weeks flat.

So that’s the idea readers.  Any thoughts or past experiences and words of wisdom welcome.  I know this is an age-old problem, so I’m sure there’s a good solution.  What do you do for your kids?  Or if you’re not at that point, what did your parents do for you?  If it’s a really good idea I might even pay you!  LOL.

To read my previous musings on this topic see the links below:

https://motherofamanchild.com/2010/06/04/mother-of-a-man-child-pocket-money-its-never-enough-is-it/

https://motherofamanchild.com/2010/09/03/mother-of-a-man-child-learning-the-value-of-a-dollar/

 

Mother of a Man-Child: Boys will be Boys on Camp January 21, 2011

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Over the summer holidays the Men-Children attended camp for a week.  It was actually run by their school.  As surprising as this may seem during the two-month long holidays that private schools enjoy, clearly someone wiser than myself understands the need for Men-Children and their parents to have a break from each other over this extended period.

The boys had wanted to attend this camp last year (at the end of Year 7).  As the camp fell in the first week of January, right when most families have their annual summer holiday together, I was adamant they should not go.  My husband agreed.  And so they didn’t.  Clearly these were signs of a mother desperate to retain a sense of control, and to hang onto the last remnants of family holidays as they slowly dissipated before her eyes.

This year the boys ended up on camp almost by mistake.  When we initially signed the paperwork it was for the senior camp in December, which I thought was a great idea as they have the entire month to do not much in my view.  A great way to fill in time and keep them off the streets quite frankly.  I much preferred primary school when they finished four days before Christmas.

The school contacted Mother of a Man-Child to confirm their attendance and the dates – yes in the first week of January.  Right in the middle of a holiday with their cousin from interstate and their grandfather, during our last stay at the family beach house (now sold).  Whilst my immediate response was “absolutely not”, I then gave consideration to the reasons we might let them go (apart from the fact that they wanted to).  In the end, common sense prevailed.  I figured that after a week with us at the beach, complaining that “it’s BORING, why can’t we have a house at Portsea, NONE of our friends are here, blah, blah” we would be more than happy to see them head off for five days and enjoy some respite from them.  Obviously there’s no doubt the feeling was reciprocal!!!

And yes for those who are thinking what spoilt children, even having a beach house to go to during summer, when it costs most families an arm and a leg to rent a beach house from the orthodontist you’ve made rich during the year whilst paying for Man-Childs teeth to be perfect, I agree.  And certainly they don’t appreciate our little sleepy hollow, complete with dirt roads and a general store, and no pub at all to attract feral young adults or Bogans.  It’s parent heaven – but clearly not teen heaven.

So off they went to camp, with much excitement and anticipation.  My excitement at five days of peace, theirs at five days of no nagging mother, being with mates, access to every water sport imaginable, and not one scrap of hygiene to worry about during the time.  Alas no amount of reminding Man-Child II to take his toothbrush worked.  He didn’t!  As he said “Who cares if you don’t brush your teeth or shower for five days – that’s what we do on every school camp.”  I’ll tell you who cares – me, and the orthodontist, that’s who.  Gross!

The upshot – my Men-Children had a great time at camp.  They came back tanned (with the mandatory sun burnt noses), looked like they’d grown two inches whilst away and developed yet more manly muscles, and were bursting with tales of what went on.  Not surprisingly most of these they were keen to share with their father not me (yep, I am getting used to this idea, very, very slowly).

They had been water-skiing, sailing, donut-ing, surfing, swimming and everything in between.  As the camp was run by Year 12 boys, and the attending boys are heading into Year 9, it also served as an “initiation” rite of sorts, with lots of boys pranks naturally.  Man-Child I was involved in one where he and a mate had to walk through the local supermarket dressed as girls.   Man-Child II proudly showed a video on his phone of the destruction of the camp mascot (a frog), to much hilarity.   (No live animals were harmed).

For my boys, this was just the sort of boisterous, boys-to-men stuff they like.  And probably just what they needed after living with their “psycho” mother all year.   No doubt it will be a unanimous decision to attend camp again next year. 🙂

 

Mother of a Man-Child: New Years at Portsea – 30 years on… January 14, 2011

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When I was 14 years old, and again at 15 years old, I begged my parents to be allowed to go to Portsea for New Years Eve. Naturally they said “NO” – not a surprise.  By the time I was finally permitted to go years later, I actually no longer wanted to go, because my peer group had moved on.  Clearly that was the intention of my parents. 🙂

As readers of my blog know, I am now experiencing first hand with my Men-Children what my parents experienced with my twin and me as their teenage daughters.  My Men-Children seem to be exhibiting extremely similar (scarily so) behaviour at exactly the same age.  Of course my father is thoroughly amused by all this – call it Karma.  Since I turned out all right, we can also assume that my Men-Children also stand a reasonable chance, so he doesn’t seem at all worried.  He’s more interested to see how I respond to the challenges of parenting a mini-me of myself.

So it should come as no surprise that Man-Child I wanted to go to Portsea for New Years Eve this year.  I am sure he planted the seed months ago with a mate, to secure a berth at someone’s house.  Which of course made it much easier for me to say I would think about it and eventually to agree.  Apparently they were off to a party at a friend’s house, which they would walk to (much better that no cars are allowed on the roads in my view).

The day before New Years, having asked the boys to tidy their room ahead of guests visiting the beach house, naturally it was me who ended up picking up wet towels off the floor and dragging doonas onto beds.  Whilst doing so I came across a bag under the bunk beds and when I pulled it out, discovered a number of grey school socks covering something cylindrical.  My first thought was large firecrackers, but alas what I found were individually wrapped stubbies of beer.  Yes that’s right, 24 bottles of warm beer.  It took me less than 0.5 seconds to work out who they belonged to and for what reason, so I picked them up and took them with me to find Man-Child I.  You can imagine his face…priceless!

The funniest thing for me was that I had asked before we left Melbourne where all the school socks were as they had strangely disappeared from the laundry.  The boys nervously responded that Man-Child I now wore his school socks with casual clothes, which I commented was very “gay” quite frankly.  Little did I know!

For once (and yes this may come as a surprise) I actually didn’t determine the resulting punishment on the spot.  I calmly advised Man-Child I there were a number of possible outcomes, namely:

  • Option 1:  Confiscate the alcohol but still allow him to go (fair)
  • Option 2:  Not allow him to go at all (very mean)
  • Option 3:  Allow him to go with the alcohol (I didn’t mention this option, but I had it up my sleeve just in case)

I then drilled him to understand how he had actually managed to acquire the beer?  We went from an un-named bottle shop in Glenferrie Road with him purchasing them initially, to the eventual truth – namely paying a “random” to buy them for him.  That was after I threatened to visit the said bottle shop and have them shut down for selling alcohol to minors.  Trust me, I so would do it!

When I told my husband about my discovery, he admitted that he actually knew about the beer!  I was not amused.  He had apparently caught our men-children passing the beer over the back fence to hide in the garden – strangely on the weekend when he was gardening.  Considering they’d been on school holidays for weeks and we’d both been working full-time I was a little surprised they were that stupid.

I was also furious to learn that Father of a Man-Child’s response had been “I don’t want to know about it”, so they had considered that tacit approval (yet again).  I mentioned that I considered that to be a clear failure of Parenting 101 and dodging responsibility.  Grrr…

As we were entertaining friends, it was several hours later before we got around to discussing what should happen with the beer.  By this stage, my friends knew about the find (it made a good story over drinks), and I had also sought the advice of my sisters and discussed/argued about it with my husband and father-in-law.

Actually it was the latter (wise older man) who had the best suggestion.  As he was kindly and conveniently taking Man-Child I to Portsea himself, he said he would take the beer as long as the parents of Man-Child’s friend knew he was bringing it.  I reasoned that this was a good approach – we were being very transparent (no more sneakiness), and the parents accepted some responsibility also.

So the result?  Countless texts and phone calls later it was all sorted.  Option 3 came to fruition – he got to go AND take the beer.  OMG, yes Mother of a Man-Child actually gave in, much to the chagrin of Man-Child II.  This is history in the making you realize?  This also meant Man-Child I was allowed to get the beers in the fridge before hand, guaranteeing an icy cold beverage.  You wouldn’t believe what they were proposing to ensure they had cold beers otherwise.

And the night?  They went to a mate’s (with beers in the back packs) then onto Shelley Beach.  The perfect hot and windy 40-degree day and night to end the year and mark the beginning of 2011.   Man-Child I survived it, no doubt sobered up by having to walk miles from his friend’s house and home again.   The only incident I learned about was a friend who had his front teeth knocked out by a charming bogan on the beach – although I understand he asked for it!

So I find myself on the cusp of another stage in adolescence.   One where I actually accept that they might just be old enough to partake selectively in alcohol…although I know it’s really not good for them at all.

And if you’re wondering what Man-Child II got up to, he didn’t manage to get to Portsea or Sorrento, or have a friend down (some things just don’t work out).  So he spent the night with some of our friends and us and we really enjoyed his company.  We even let him have a beer with us.  Cheers!